A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Boy
by Wind91Rider
Summary: The word bad's only there because they don't understand how good one can be for you. Soriku, AkuRoku, numerous others.
1. Like We Knew

So, this is my Kingdom Hearts 2 fanfic. This is so weird...I haven't posted a fic in ages...I barely remember how to do this.

**Disclaimer: **(This is pointless, 'cause everyone knows what I'm going to say...) I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I own the three games, and I would like to own Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix +, because it has Re:Chain of Memories, which I want sooooo badly I could cry. But that's all.

**General Warning: **Swearing and the mention of self-mutilation in this chapter. If either of those things causes you discomfort/nausea/PTSD, then hit the back button.

**Warning for Homophobes/People who hate shounen-ai: **Even though there's a little warning on the summary that's nearly impossible to miss (it's spelled y-a-o-i), I'll say this now in case you did: there will be yaoi. There will be one-sided yuri. This translates to boy-on-boy love and girl-on-straight-girl love. So if you're totally repulsed by homosexuality or just don't like reading it, here's your warning.

**Warning for the people who hate straight pairings/yuri: **Ok, I should've mentioned this in the summary, but there wasn't enough room. There are SOME straight pairings in this thing. You'll probably be happy to learn that they are mostly with the minor characters. There's also some yuri. I don't know if this will be a big thing in the plot or not. We'll see. Y'all can expect warnings, though, for when it comes around.

I should also say that the gray lines indicate a change in POV. The asterisks indicate a scene break within the SAME POV. Don't confuse 'em, or I think you'll be a little confused...

* * *

**A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Boy**

**Chapter One: Like We Knew**

Our mom pretty much sprang the plan to move on us and wasn't going to take no for an answer. Tifa was like that. She was sweet and caring, and all in all the best mom you could ask for. Except for one thing.

She hated our dad.

But could you blame her, honestly? Cloud left Mom for his best friend Aerith, and two years later, left _her. _Which pissed Mom off even more, because she felt like Dad had left her for no reason. Ever worse was that he didn't want to get back together with her. The only reason we ever got to see our father was on his visitation days, which happened to be every third week. We'd grab our stuff (not that we took a lot, since we had a stock of clothes and video games and other bare necessities at Dad's place) and trucked three blocks to his cruddy apartment. We'd been doing this since I was eight and the twins were seven. It was sort of fun, getting two sets of new clothes in September—even if Dad could only afford one new shirt per kid—two Christmases, and two birthday parties. It never bothered me at all, having split parents.

Apparently, it bothered Mom. A lot. She finally cracked right in the middle of my junior year. While I was stressing over my numerous exams and prepping for the practice SATs, she was looking into real estate in Hollow Bastion.

Here was how I found out about the upcoming move:

I was in the shower.

The rule is, everyone gets fifteen minutes to shower. This was to save time, fighting and hot water bills (the stuff was a bitch to pay for in Twilight Town), but if you were lucky you could sneak in a few extra minutes if the person after you wasn't paying enough attention.

(In my mom's defense, Dad doesn't even have running hot water. If you wanted to wash your hair, you have to either go use someone else's shower or resort to the system we'd developed when I was eleven: warm up two pots of water on the stove, then hold your head over the sink while one of your siblings poured said warm water on your head with a cup. Later, rinse with the second pot of water, and towel off. I got into huge trouble for this once for burning Naminé head because I'd heated the water too long.)

So when Roxas yelled from outside the bathroom at me, I'd figured he was just pissed off that I was using his hot water.

"I-WILL-BE-OUT-IN-A-MINUTE!" I screamed, trying to get the shampoo from out of my ears.

"GOOD!" Roxas screamed back. "BUT-MOM-SAID-"

"WHO'S-DEAD?"

"MOM-SAID-WE'RE-MOVING!"

"I'M-NOT-GROOVING-I'M-"

The door banged open, hit the wall, and then the shower curtain was ripped open to show my younger brother, screaming in my face. "WE'RE MOVING!!!" he roared, blue eyes all wild and bloodshot like that time I gave him six Vaults. "DO YOU GET IT _NOW, _DORKUS?"

"WHY!" I screamed, this time because I was in total disbelief, not because I had shampoo in my ears.

"LIKE I KNOW!" Roxas shouted. His face was livid. He was livid a lot, but this was a whole new standard of lividness.

Over the sound of the water running, I heard small feet stomping up the stairs. "Would you guys stop-_MY EYES, MY EYES!!!_"

"_Naminé!" _Roxas yelled, whirling around to howl at his twin, who stood in the open doorway.

"_Cover up! What are you even _doing _in there, Roxas?" _Apparently, Naimné hadn't thought to just leave and save herself the sight of seeing me sans apparel. I mean, _she's _the smart one. Smartest one. Whatever.

"_I'm trying to tell Sora that we're moving!"_ Roxas told her while I turned around.

"_We're moving?"_ Naminé shrieked, this time in confusion and not horror.

"_Yeah!" _Roxas yelled back.

"_Would all of you get out of the bathroom and quit yelling?" _Mom screamed from downstairs. _"NOW?"_

Damn. My joyride shower was over.

Now, honestly, the move was a total surprise. We all knew Mom hated living in Twilight Town with Dad, where she could run into him at the grocery store while he was stocking up on sea-salt ice cream and Eggo Waffles. She didn't like calling to tell him to tell him there was a parent-teacher conference he had to be at next week. Mostly she hated how we generall had more fun at Dad's place, despite how Naminé slept on towels in the tub 'cause Roxas and I had to share the couch while Dad slept in the only bed. Dad had less rules-we could eat when we wanted, watch TV when we wanted, have Kairi over whenever we wanted.

But we didn't think it bothered her _this _much. I mean, she'd been doing fine for the past eight years! Why was it a problem _now, _in the middle of _November?_ Couldn't she have waited until summer to betray us? Then we could enter our new school and not be so obviously new. Now, we'd have to go in Monday morning and be gawked at like freaks. The cherry on top of this ice cream sundae of horror. Perrrrrfect.

While Roxas sulked and Naminé tried to cleanse her eyes (using her twin's hot water, I might add), I tried to interrogate Tifa.

Key word: tried. I got nowhere.

"Sora Strife," she told me in her bossiest voice with her hands over her hips, "this is not up for debate. I've already put a down payment on a house in Hollow Bastion. The truck's coming Thursday for our things and _we're _leaving Friday."

Today was Monday. She wanted us to pack all our stuff in _two days?_

"What about Dad?" I half-yelled, intercepting her as she tried to sidestep around me. "He's got visitation rights! You're violating them by moving!"

"He only has visitation as long as he pays child support, which he _can't anymore._" Mom growled. "So I'm not _violating_ anything. _Move, _Sora."

She got past me that time, but only because I let her in my mad dash for the phone. I punched in Dad's number-wrong, the first time, I was so hyped up-and the moment I heard him mutter, "Lo?" I started in on him.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO OUR CHILD SUPPORT MONEY?" I screamed, using my full volume to get my point across. "I THOUGHT YOU HAD A GREAT JOB AND ALL! WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT?"

"You call bruising your thumb with a hammer a great job?" my dad retorted in his slow, dark voice.

"DAD! AT LEAST IT PAID MONEY!"

"Not much," he argued.

"BUT ENOUGH FOR CHILD SUPPORT!"

"Barely."

"SORA!" Mom shouted from the living room. "BE QUIET!"

My solution to that request was to take our cordless phone into the downstairs bathroom and lock myself in.

"C'mon, Dad," I whined. I sat on the toilet. "What happened? Why can't you pay Mom anymore?"

Dad sighed. I could just picture him running his hands through his blonde hair, just as spike as mine. "I got hurt, Sora," he said. "My foot got crushed and I had to pay for the surgery out of my own pocket, since I don't have medical insurance. I can barely afford my apartment and food, let alone you and the twins."

I could only blink. My dad didn't have medical insurance, and he worked for a _construction company?_ "Won't your company pay for it, since you got hurt on the job?"

"I didn't get hurt on the job," Cloud said simply. "So SOLDIER won't pay a thing."

"But-can't you borrow money from Barrett?" I said, thinking of my dad's best-and probably only-friend.

"He's got his own daughter to support," Dad said. He sounded very tired. Very very tired. Which isn't unusual for Dad, but this was pretty extreme. "I'm pretty much stuck, Sor. I can't do anything until I finish paying back the hospital. After that, I can start paying Tifa your money again."

"_After that," _I mimicked, getting closer and closer to losing my temper with each moment, "I'll be living in Hollow Bastion. _Hollow Bastion,_ Dad. It's hours away."

"You can commute. Or something," Cloud said. "I'm sorry, Sora."

He really meant it, but I was too pissed off to do anything except hang up.

Which left only Kairi to whine to. She lived right next door to us, with only two windows and a tree between us. After she moved to Twilight Town when we were eleven and beat me up after I asked her why her hair resembled a cherry tomato (well, let's face it: her red hair in that bob _did _kind of look like a tomato), we'd become best friends. We figured out how to climb across the tree to each other's windows and got away with it until we were thirteen, when I fell off a branch and broke my ankle.

Needless to say, after that, Tifa was not happy about our preferred method of meeting. Still, it never stopped us from sneaking over to each other's rooms to play video games/copy homework off each other/waste time doing nothing.

Kairi was fairly furious. I say fairly because when she heard that we were moving to Hollow Bastion, she got all excited. Coincidentally, Kairi is from Hollow Bastion. I find it ironic that I am going to the circle of Hell Kairi hails from. It's funny in a just-my-luck kind of way.

"I just can't believe your mom wants to move now," she said, pacing in circles in the middle of her floor. I watched her from her unmade bed, where I sat on various notebooks and articles of clothing. "I mean, I can totally understood wanting to get away from your dad—"

"What's wrong with my dad?" I asked rather defensively.

"Nothing, Sora," she said soothingly, stepping over her pink math binder. "It's just probably real hard for Tifa to be around him when she still loves him."

"Mom doesn't love Dad," I told her, vaguely surprised she's suggested it. "She hates him."

Kairi sighed and gave me one of those looks that plainly said, "Are you _really _this stupid?" "Sora, Sora, Sora," she said, shaking her head slowly. "Girls don't always show people how much they really like a person."

She was giving me really wide, anime eyes that told me she was trying to convey something to me. Probably, she was attempting to inflict on me exactly how stupid she thought I was. Knowing Kairi, and how she knew just about everything I'd ever need to know about girls, she probably thought I was at the Cro-Magnon level of intelligence.

I moaned and fell sideways onto her bed, smushing my face into her lab book. "Kai-riiii," I whined, pouting. "I don't _wanna_ go to Hollow Bastion. I wanna stay here with _youuuuu_…"

"You big baby," she accused. But she did come sit beside me and run her fingers through my hair, which felt nice. As she did this, she said, "When you get to Hollow Bastion, do something for me, would you?"

I sat up. "Sure, what?"

"Try to find Riku Nomura. He used to be my best friend before I moved. Just tell him I say hi, okay?"

I blinked but nodded. "Um, sure. But I might not even go to the same school as him. And I don't even know what he looks like."

Kairi just laughed. For a really long time.

* * *

Let me tell you something: it is no joke trying to live with two brothers. Particularly if your brothers are Sora and Roxas Strife, who are walking disasters. You'd think that having lived with them for fifteen years, I'd have been desensitized to their antics. 

Think again. I'm still not used to them. And Roxas is my _twin, _for crying out loud. I know him better then he even knows himself, I think.

So, by that reasoning, I should have expected him to throw a tantrum once he'd showered (because nothing will stand between Roxas and his fifteen minutes of shower time, not even the prospect of moving) but I didn't. That might have something to do with the fact that I was trying to erase the image of my naked big brother from my mind by blasting Gullwings music as loud as possible on my iPod and then staring at the sun, in hopes of burning the image from my mind (obviously, all that happened was I got spots in front of my eyes for about twenty minutes afterwards). Either way, I shouldn't have been surprised when I heard something crash downstairs, and then some frenzied screaming.

"ROXAS!" Mom yelled, her voice straining from having shouted at so many people today. "WHAT WAS THAT!"

"FUCK YOU!" he shouted back, then stomped out the front door. I heard it slam as I went downstairs to see what he'd done.

It turned out to be nothing, really. All he'd done was thrown a drinking glass at the refrigerator, which was perfectly normal of Roxas and his temper. I swept up the glass and then thought about slashing Mom's tires with the pieces, but decided that it wasn't worth the fortune four new tires would cost me and just threw it away.

Mom came downstairs just as I was finishing up. The first thing she said was, "I'm sorry, Nam. I know you don't want to leave."

Damn right. Even though Twilight Town wasn't necessarily the greatest place to live-a bunch of the kids were way too sane and way too boring for my taste-it was my home, the place I'd been born and raised in. I'd gone to school here, made some friends here (and then promptly lost them all in middle school when I became "arty" and they became "cool"), fallen in love here. _Dad _lived here, and I sure didn't want to leave him, irresponsible as he is.

But on the other hand, I could tell how much Mom wanted to leave. I guess it was because I'm a girl-and therefore profoundly more wise than either of my brothers-I knew the real reason Mom hated living in the same town as Dad. Roxas thought it was because Mom was mad at him for leaving her for someone else, and I was pretty sure Sora thought along those same lines. I could tell that Mom hated being here because she loved Dad, and he didn't love her. Seeing him free to love her and not loving her was agony for Mom, I was sure, so she hid behind rage. I could relate to this, in a way. I knew plenty well what it was like to love someone and not have the feelings returned. Only, I had it worse. The person I loved was in love with someone else, and everyone knew it.

By everyone, of course, I meant everyone besides the object of my beloved's affections. He had no idea. Then again, Sora was always oblivious to romance when it was directed at him. Other times, he was annoying perceptive (though I guess in the case of Mom, he wasn't). He picked up on my crush probably only a month after I did, which caused me a ton of embarrassment at first. I mean, how many eleven-year-old girls fall in love with other _girls?_

Not many, because they were all preoccupied with the BOYS!

But Sora was pretty cool about it. He told me I might grow out of it, and it could just be hormones and me not having any friends, because at this point all my old ones were ditching me for cooler people who didn't draw all the time. He also said no hard feelings whatsoever, and then proceeded to go on about how I was still his favorite little sister and he'd always love me and blah blah blah. You can imagine the rest for yourself.

So, in response to my mother's assessment of my feelings about the upcoming move to Hollow Bastion—which was four hours away by car, two and a half by train because it took a more direct route—I sort of just shrugged and said, "It makes you happy, doesn't it?"

Fine. _Technically, _I dodged the question. But I couldn't tell Mom the truth, which was that leaving made me feel like I was leaving a piece of my heart behind. An _important _piece at that, like the aorta, or something. One of the valves you need to pump blood to the rest of the body, in order to survive.

I didn't really have any friends of my own to comfort me. Sora had Kairi, who he was probably with now, and Roxas had this guy named Seifer, who he swears is the biggest asshole in the whole Town. They like to beat each other up in Struggle matches. For some reason, they're friends. I think. Roxas does not like talking about Seifer with me, probably because he likes to uphold the image of the badass kid who will mercilessly take down any offender with a cold, unfeeling heart. Or something. But I guessed that my twin was with Seifer now, blowing off some steam in a practice Struggle match. He'd come home later bleeding but in a better mood.

I _did _have friends in elementary school. Vivi, Fuu, and Rai, who accepted me into their little group in first grade when I gave them my gummi worms. Of course, then, they ditched me in sixth grade, and after that I didn't bother to make new friends. I didn't know _how, _for starters, since I'd never had to when I had those three. And then there was the whole complication of me being related to Sora and Roxas who, at the ages of twelve and eleven, were already proven to be nutso. Roxas got into fights and Sora was just plain strange, always daydreaming about being somewhere else and falling over a lot (he was one of those clumsy pre-teenagers).

It was great. At the age of eleven, I was already a white-dress-wearing, constantly-drawing, one-of-those-Strife-kids freak who had trouble talking to anyone at all.

So when Kairi came along, showing up at our doorstep one Saturday morning with a letter of apology to Sora for having beaten him up the other day, I was infinitely grateful to find out that there was going to be a girl in the house who would actually be here a lot, to play with Sora. Sure, she was a seventh grader and I was a sixth grader, but she was new and she didn't know that I was a freak. We became fast friends. Mostly because whenever she was in the house I wouldn't stop talking to her. Then we started teaming up on the boys whenever we played games, and that made us really close. Almost like big sister-little sister, though I knew that in her heart, she was more attached to Sora than she was to me.

The moral of the story is, I only had one person to call when I got depressed about this move thing, and that was Kairi. But I couldn't call her! She was busy with Sora, who was over there right now-I could see him from my bedroom window, in her room-telling her all the gory details. I couldn't just go in there and start unloading, Sora would probably get annoyed. And then Kairi would get annoyed, because generally, anything that annoyed Sora annoyed her too.

So I did the only thing that would make me feel in the lease bit better: I drew. I pulled out my colored pencils and my sketchbook-my 32nd sketchbook, to be accurate-and let the colors flow out my fingers and into the pencils, finally leaking out onto the page. I pressed down hard to make the colors richer, more intense, to match my feelings. Red spread all over the paper in wild, swooping lines that arched high up to the plastic spirals of the notebook and back down again to the bottom, sometimes making smaller points or twisting into curls. I shaded in the points but left it alone after that, pausing to admire the bold streaks of red on white. Then I reached for the Sharpie I carried with me, and shaded in the white that remained enclosed in the wall, leaving only a white bar at the bottom unmarked. That, I filled with blue spikes, a light blue that you saw on clear days that lifted your heart. I finished it by going in again with the Sharpie and filling in the white places next to the blue.

I held up my finished picture in front of me. Red and black flames, with a pure blue core at the bottom. Blue, the color of peace, buried underneath the black of my frustrations. Red, the color of her hair…

* * *

I hated my mom. I hated her, I hated her, I hated her. I hated her more than I hated anything else, which said plenty, because anything I hated I hated with a burning passion. Like...people who got in my way. They were the worst. School was full of them: guys who wanted to be the BGOC, girls who were tripping over themselves for my attention. Assholes who just liked to be underfoot because they liked getting a rise out of people. Yup. Hated 'em. 

I didn't like people who hurt Namine, either. Sora, I wasn't worried about. Nothing bothered him much, probably because he was oblivious to anything people said about him. But Namine, I worried about. She had no friends. None. Zero. And to top it off, she was shy and seriously introverted, so the possibility of her making new friends was low. I heard girls talking about her sometimes. They said the same things over and over: she was nice, she was smart, but she was shy, wore white a lot. Some girls went so far as to call her a freak for that last one. I can't stand to hear it.

I'd gotten all the way to the train station and managed to work myself up into a thoroughly pissed off mood. Even though the station was closed and the trains weren't moving, I sat on the steps and looked out across at the sun that was sitting low on the horizon, the long shadows it created. How could Mom take us away from Dad and still sleep at night, I wanted to know. She knew how important he was to us. Dad was the parent who understood why I'd gotten into fights in middle school, Dad was the one who took care of my black eyes and bruises, and he was the one who came and got me when I got suspended and promised not to let my Mom know. He was the one who'd shoved me into therapy in ninth grade when I'd started cutting myself. He understood that, too. Mom didn't. Sora didn't, but he didn't try to force me into helping him. Namine didn't, but she knew I was in pain, so she gave me space and tried to heal me with the kindness from her heart.

And she wanted me to leave Cloud? Fat chance. I'd do everything in my power to stay home, where I was understood by at least someone, where even though there was pain…at least I could _recognize _the source and avoid it like the fucking plague. Hollow Bastion was pretty much just a potential cesspool for more damn misery.

And, to quote Sora from one time when I'd nearly bled to death, like I know how to deal with anything.

* * *

So, why is Roxas so messed up, you may ask?

I dunno, don't look at me. It was HIS decision, not mine.

(By that, I just mean it just sort of happened. So I went with it.)

Tell me how I did. I've never done a KH fic, or even a yaoi fic..though I do read a lot of 'em...so I'd appreciate feedback. Or even just something that says "kool" or whatever.

-Wind


	2. Everybody Has Secrets

Alrighty, then. I got one review for this story. One. I am extremely impressed. It's not quite as bad as what I had earlier this week, which was zero. Then **iodized salt **reviewed and made my day. So this chapter is dedicated to her (I hope to God you're a her and not a newly offended him) for being my sole reviewer. Thank you!

It's about 1:20 AM, so I'm a little nuts. The reason I'm up at 1:20 AM is because I watched Little Miss Sunshine until midnight thirty, then edited this thing while I drank Vault. And mourned being asked to join the National Honor Society. Why is this bad? Trust me. Meet my mom, and you'd find out. Either way, that's why this is getting posted at 1:20--I mean, 1:21 AM.

**Disclaimerrrrr: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts. Or Kingdom Hearts 2. Or Final Mix +. I wish I did. I also sort of do not own the title. It was inspired by Tanya Lee Stone's _A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Girl. _Obviously, this title wouldn't work for a yaoi fic, but it worked so perfectly I had to steal it. So I did and morphed it.

**Warnings: **All the stuff in Chapter One (yaoi, yuri, inappropriate language, and the self-mutilation thing. There isn't any in this chapter, so you can exhale slowly now...). Gray lines are changes in narrator, asterisks are scene changes with the same character. Enjoy.

* * *

A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Boy

Chapter Two: Everybody Has Secrets

Mom let us skip school so we could sort through our things to decide what we wanted to keep and what we could give to charity. This worked out okay for awhile until Mom, when she came upstairs to check on our progress and take a look at what we wanted to throw out, found that Roxas had raided her closet and dumped all her clothes and jewelry into Naminé's "Charity" pile. Not only that, he'd hidden her computer-the _whole _computer, monitor, tower and all-somewhere and refused to tell us where. After from _that, _he'd stolen Mom's keys, and then hid under his bed and wouldn't come out. Mom freaked out at that point, crazy with this fear that Roxas was under there cutting his wrists with her car keys.

Naminé calmed her down, though, by telling her that Roxas had never cut himself with keys before and wasn't likely to start now, seeing that he hadn't hurt himself on purpose for four months now.

Still, it was on our minds as we left Roxas to lurk under his bed with the stolen car keys. At least, _I_ was thinking about it. Honestly, I wasn't too sure if moving was such a great idea where my little brother was concerned. He'd only graduated from therapy a month ago, and he still struggled with controlling his emotions. Yesterday with the glass was an example. I remember one time, around March, when Roxas put his fist through the TV. That kind of thing used to happen every day. Now, luckily, he only breaks stuff when he gets really angry, which, also luckily, isn't too often. His old shrink, this guy called Diz, had helped Roxas find outlets for his repressed anger.

His outlets turned out to be beating his supposed best friend into a bruised and bloody pulp in the Struggle Arena. I think Mom would've preferred an outlet that didn't leave him looking like a bruised fruit, but maybe I'm wrong. After he scratched the windows in the kitchen by throwing his skateboard at them (Mom had wisely installed bulletproof glass earlier, so they weren't totally destroyed), I'd bet she was willing to accept any damn outlet she could get.

I went to go make lunch for everyone, since I can hobble together a passable meal the best and with the least amount of bulimic activity afterward. It was grilled cheese today. I got out the pan and was all set to get the bread and cheese going when Naminé came downstairs, her white sleep shirt and sweatpants engulfing her tiny frame. Dad's frame—he was short for a guy. Her long, gold hair had been brushed but she looked exhausted. I wondered if she'd gotten any sleep last night.

"Hey Nam," I greeted, giving her a one-armed hug. "You alright?"

She looked up at me and her blue eyes were heavy, sad, depressed. It struck me then that this would be hard for Naminé too, just as hard as it would be for Roxas. After all, Naminé had to leave behind the girl of her dreams.

I had to leave behind Kairi. As much as I liked her and would miss her, she was in no way the girl of my dreams.

"I'm fine," she said. A textbook lie. We both knew she was hurting inside.

"I'm gonna miss her," she admitted after I gave her my best Long Hard Glare. " A lot. I love her, Sora."

Like I said: girl of her dreams.

"Nam," I said carefully, having to let go of her to tend to lunch, "you know it probably wouldn't have worked between you two." Or even happened. "She's straight."

"I know," she said flatly, hopelessly. And that made me feel worse. Naminé obviously knew how bad things were for her, being gay and all, and liking a straight girl.

I changed the subject to something sliiiiiightly less depressing. "Um, d'you think Roxas will be okay, moving?"

She shrugged as acrid smells filled my nose, telling me I had burned the bread. "Well, he's upstairs under his bed, probably planning to swallow Mom's keys. You tell me."

* * *

Sora's place was in total chaos when I got there. I could hear Roxas and Tifa screaming at each other from the top of the stairs. Probably, they were fighting over the huge pile of Tifa's stuff that was strewn all over the floor. Hmm. Roxas must not be happy about moving.

"Hel-_looooo!" _I called, my heart already speeding up in anticipation of seeing _him. _

"Hi Kairi!"

He walked out of the kitchen with an especially crispy-looking grilled cheese sandwich and smiled at me. God, that smile. It lit up not just the room but your heart…your whole universe, even. I'd waited all day for that smile, and now I could just hang around and bask in it.

"Hey Sora," I said, smiling back and walking past him, snagging the sandwich. "How's it goin'?"

"Good, now that you're here."

My breath caught. Figuratively, of course. I knew he didn't mean it, but still, I could dream…

"You can help me pack!" he chirped happily, nabbing his sandwich back from me and taking a bite.

Damn. The dream dies.

Sora kept up a stream of steady chatter as he emptied his closet, his desk, and his dresser. His stuff went into two piles: the tiny mound that was Charity, and the huge mountain that was Keep. He talked and talked about all the stuff he was going to miss here in Twilight Town, and how he'd come back to visit when his dad had visitation rights again.

I just sat on the bed.

Just.

Sat.

There.

And watched him. Everything about Sora is loud and bright and excited. The way he moves, the sound of his voice, the way he talks, the way his eyes shine when he's happy-or sad, or angry, or just thinking-and his face. Watching him move and talk and be alive-to feel all his loud colors-is just breathtaking. Painfully so, because when I see him like that it takes all my concentration not to gather him up into my arms and soak up his colors.

I am shaded. Dusky tones of darker colors. Elegant, pretty in a muted way, but not really flashy or interest—grabbing. I have to work to be noticed. If I am ever noticed, it's not because I'm hot or charismatic or obviously interesting. It's mostly because I'm smart. (Or violent. Roxas says that about me a lot.) Or funny. Or because I'm not afraid to show my feelings when I'm worked up.

That doesn't apply to my feelings about Sora, though. That's a whole 'nother Struggle arena. I'm not even gonna go there.

"So, what's Riku like?"

I blinked. I hadn't been expecting him to give me a chance to talk. "Ri-Riku?"

"Yeah, y'know…your friend you wanted me to look up? What's he like?"

I tried to form a clear picture of Riku in my head for Sora. I hadn't seen him in years, of course. Mostly all I could remember were the really unforgettable parts about him and all the wild stuff we'd gotten into as kids…the trouble we'd been in. I could remember the rush of energy and excitement you got from just being around him, because exciting stuff always happened around Riku. Kidnapping the neighbors cat. Racing through yards screaming obscene songs we'd learned from the middle schoolers. Playing tricks on a bunch of kids we'd gone to school with. Two ragtag kids, running around like mad and having gales of fun with permanent grass stains on their knees…that was us.

"He's…interesting," I said and froze. Wait. Hang on. This was a great chance to try to make Sora jealous. Or at least see if it was in his capacity to be jealous over me. Ignoring my Inner Smart Person who was calling me ten kinds of idiot, I smiled dreamily and said, "He's got this long, soft silver hair that shimmers when he walks—"

"_Silver?_"

"Yup," I said, and without missing a beat went on, "—and it compliments his turquoise eyes, and they're the _exact _color of the sea-."

"_SILVER?!"_

I sighed an gave up. My Inner Smart Person smirked and mouthed, "I told you so."

* * *

She's _STILL _here? How can that be possible? She's been here for, like, two hours! Isn't she supposed to be at school?

Don't get me wrong, Kairi's fine. She's cool, I guess. She doesn't mind getting dirty (though not in her "cute" clothes), she doesn't get woozy at the sight of blood, and she has no qualms about getting violent with me or my brother.

She also has no qualms about getting violent with my brother _in bed_. The thought of Sora and Kairi as a _them_ always made me want to hurl. And then break something, if I was pissed enough. Like now.

"Kairi!" I yelled, pounding on Sora's door. "Stop thinking nasty thoughts about Sora so I can come in!"

I heard Kairi sigh, Sora choke and then laugh. Then the door opened and one small hand reached out for me. I saw little chocobos running around my head. Yup, no qualms about violence.

"Morning Roxas," she said in her sugariest voice. "You must be feeling better."

The room slowly spun to a halt. "Eh?" I said. I could _feel_ the bump forming where she'd smacked me.

"If you're being an ass, then you must be in a better mood." Kairi smirked, pushing the door open wider. I came in and sat slumped against Sora's desk, nudging aside the junk on the floor to make room to sit. Kairi sat herself on the bed and began examining her blue-painted fingernails.

"Hey, you're not under the bed anymore," Sora said cheerfully. He smiled brightly at me. "That's good."

"Sure," I said scornfully, picking at my black and white checkerboard wrist cuff. "Except Tifa locked me out of my room and told me to help you pack." That bitch.

"Huh," Sora said, eyes sweeping the floor. "Uh, I guess you can put stuff in boxes. Or help Naminé. I think she needs help—"

"There is _no way,_" I informed him, "that I am going to help Naminé. She's sulking in her room 'cause she doesn't wanna go to Hollow Bastard."

She also doesn't want to leave her little girlfriend, I thought to myself, but I didn't say that. Kairi wasn't supposed to know.

"Oh," Kairi said confused, if the way her forehead creased was any indication. "But I thought she'd be glad to leave. Naminé hates it here."

Sora and I exchanged looks. We both knew it was impossible for Naminé to hate being where Kairi was.

"Whatever," I said, then hit my forehead with my palm. "Oh, I forgot, Kairi, your mom called. She wants you back at school."

"Really?" Major disappointment on her face. I cackled on the inside. "Damn. I didn't even hear the phone ring."

Well, yeah, there's a reason for that…

"You must've been too busy thinking about sticking your tongue down Sora's throat," I said cheerfully and probably truthfully.

Kairi threw the lamp from Sora's nightstand at me. She forgot about the cord, so the lamp hit the floor and not me. I laughed at her embarrassment and at Sora's preteen-girl-blush. Inwardly I was embarrassed for him. The thought of girls as _girls _in the sink and left it there to cement. When he kissed his first girl, he got his lip caught in her braces. If that's not a bad omen, I don't know _what_ is.

"Gaytard," she snapped. She only calls me that when she can't think of anything else to throw at me. Insults, I mean, not objects. I'm sure she can find plenty of things to throw at me that can be find plenty of things to throw at me that can be found on the physical plane of being.

And _gaytard _isn't even a very creative nor insulting insult. Being gay has exactly zero impact on me. None. I only figured it out about a month before my life blew up in my face, and after that I was in no way okay to have a relationship. I'm still not okay enough, but chocobos will grow fur before I admit that to Kairi.

Plus, you can tell Kairi doesn't really mean it when she calls me _gaytard._ She doesn't care if I'm straight or not. As long as _Sora's _operating as planned, she's happy.

Still, I sighed with relief when she left to go back to school. I'm more relaxed when we didn't have other people in the house. Normally I could deal with Kairi hanging out, but today I felt too pissed off to want to put up with more than the bare minimum. Sora knew that, and I knew that was why he hadn't said that he hadn't heard Kairi's mom call either.

We did hear the front door slam as Kairi left, and then I had Sora's eyes on me. He was watching me carefully, guarded, emotionless. It was the same look Tifa and Naminé give me when they're scared and don't want to provoke me with their fear. Sora used it when he was worried about me, which made me glad; I hated being pitied. And not having to see the pity makes it easier to talk to him.

"What?" I asked, even though I knew what.

"I know you don't want to move, but don't take it out on Kai," he said carefully, keeping eye contact (another thing they're supposed to do when talking me to prevent provocation). "She doesn't want any of us to leave. Even you."

Sure. She'll only miss her she-wishes boy-toy. Not Naminé, who's been in love with her since she laid _eyes _on the Kairi, and sure as hell not me, the screwed up slitter.

I told him that. He reddened again. "Don't say stuff like that," Sora scolded. I'd annoyed him now. "We're just friends."

I laughed at his obliviousness. Nam was right, he _was _clueless when it came to people who liked him. And Mom, also. "Dude, she wants to jump you so bad her knees bend when you come into the room."

His eyes twitched. His lips puckered. God, this was too funny. He just did not know how to deal with stuff like this. Times like this make me wonder just how straight Sora is.

"Whatever," was all he managed to come up with. That, and, "Go away."

I took him literally and went to my dad's place. He looked awful. His foot was in a brace and he looked more tired than I'd seen him in a long time. He was happy to see me, though.

"Hey, Rox," he said when I came in the door, giving me a quiet smile. "How's life treating you?"

"I'm moving," I said sourly, and that explained everything. He grimaced as I threw myself onto the sofa next to him and carefully avoided the spot where an awry spring sometimes could pop free and stick you in the leg.

"Sora already told you why," he guessed. He stared at me balefully. "I'm sorry, Rox."

I folded my arms and scowled down at the threadbare carpet. "Whatever," I mumbled. "It's fine. It's all Tifa's fault, anyway. She's the one all set to leave."

Dad shrugged, then leaned over to scratch his bum foot. I eyed it. "How'd that happen? Your foot?"

He laughed. "Yuffie dropped her fridge on my foot."

Figures she'd be the reason. That she-dog was the cause of at least a third of the traumas I'd experienced in my fifteen-year-long life. "Her fridge. She dropped a fridge on you."

"Yeah." He rolled his eyes. "She wanted me to move it. And we were lifting it when she suddenly decided she needed a Diet Pepsi and dropped the fridge to go get one."

"So how'd it end up on your foot?"

"She poked me with her shuriken. I let go of the fridge to defend myself."

Ouch. So it was her fault. My fist clenched. I'd _kill _her.

"Roxas, let it go. This was bound to happen."

I glanced at my dad. He was giving me that get-over-your-bad-self look he's been giving me lately whenever I get mad over something he thinks if trivial. Cloud is seriously of the opinion that regretting the past will get you nowhere. That's probably why living in the same town as Mom has no effect on him emotionally whatsoever, unlike Tifa, who has a bitch fit whenever she sees him in a public place.

I'm more like my mom. Stuff that happened earlier always bugs me later. Naminé says I just have trouble letting go.

Sure, thanks for that, Dr. Phil.

She's probably got a point though, because Diz, my old shrink, had said the same thing. Huh.

"Whatever," I said, relaxing my hand.

Cloud sighed and punched me lightly in the shoulder. "C'mon," he said wearily, "you're sandbagging. What're you thinking."

He never says this like a question. It's more like an order, coming from him. I shrugged, fiddled with my wristband.

"Roxas."

I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. Damn. I saw all his concern and his stubbornness and faltered, my own defenses breaking.

"I just—I don't want to leave. You. That's all," I mumbled, looking away again. "Alright? I'll hate not seeing you all the time. I—"

I need you.

I couldn't say it. I never can say stuff like that. I love you, I'll miss you, I was worried about you. I can't say it to anyone. I've tried to say those kinds of things to Naminé, to Sora, but my throat closes and my head goes blank. Then my chest starts to ache. Those are the times when I can actually believe I have a heart. The rest of the time, I can't feel it.

Dad put a warm hand on my shoulder. He smiled.

"I know," he said.

* * *

So there's your yuri and straight pairings. I haven't read a straight pairing in ages, so I had to go and read some to remind myself...if I had a boyfriend, I'd just use him, but I don't have one...sob...Anyway, hope you liked it. Please review on your way out. Thanx! 


	3. The Fluffy Chicken Nugget of Death

Riiiiight...so I posted later than expected. Blame my teachers. Whatever. Either way, I present the third chapter of this fanfic which, from now on (with possible exceptions) will be in the third person. That means I'll be using "he" "they" and "she" more than "I" "me" and "us." This is mostly because I think the fic will go better in the third person.

I also hate writing in first person. So this is basically a way for me to escape doing things I hate doing.

The title comes from my history teacher (get this: 29, first year of teaching, Mormon, looks like Clark Kent-glasses, hair cut and all-and frequently tucks his shirt into his pants, which are abnormally high because he's tall and skinny) who, in an attempt to connect with all the metal-heads in my fourth period World History class, calls all the games of Bingo and Around the World the French Revolution Bingo Game of Death, for example. I love it when he does this...ah...so I used it for this chapter.

**Disclaiiiiiimer: **Kingdom Hearts n'est pas ma propriete. But you all knew that. Credit for the title goes to Tanya Lee Stones, who wrote the excellent book _A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl._ Go read it.

Now.

Also, I'm dedicating this to **Sorasoul1, **who not only read both my chapters, but reviewed them both. Since I mostly have the bad habit of reading the whole story and reviewing the last chapter on the whole story, I am extremely impressed with this. Thanks, you. Yaoi-ish stuff will start soon. Next chapter soon. Persevere!

**A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Boy**

**Chapter Three: The Fluffy Chicken Nugget of Death**

Friday came too damn fast. Thursday was bad enough, when we had to get all our stuff into the moving vans, except for the things we were going to take in the car with us: Roxas's iPod, Sora's PSP, my pencils and drawing pads, and the inflatable mattresses that we all had to sleep on in place of beds. Aside from having gotten no sleep last night because the plastic squeaked whenever you moved and it stuck to your bare skin like a leech, I felt insanely hopeless once I had woken up. Or maybe it was hopelessly insane. There's not much difference, if you look closely.

But that was pretty much how the whole morning went. Mom and Roxas went to McDonalds to get breakfast, so it was just me and Sora when Kairi came over. The minute she walked in, she threw herself onto Sora's Inflato-Tress and screamed for a whole minute.

"Um," Sora said when she was done. "I'm guessing that you're not having a good day."

"_Fuck _no," she said crankily, throwing one leg over a knee and folding her arms. "My best friends are moving to _Hollow fucking Bastion._ _Today._"

I was very touched by the "s" stuck on the end of "best friend." Even though Sora really is her one truly best friend, it was extremely nice of her to include me.

"Ah, cheer up," Sora said cheerfully. "C'mon Kairi, it'll be okay. Y'know why?"

"No. Why?"

"'_Cause you'll beeee in myyy hearrrrt…"_Sora sang. He beamed toothily and began pirouetting around the empty downstairs. "_You'll BEEEEE in myyyy hearrrrrrt…"_

"Oh, brother," I muttered. "If I'd know this was going to happen I would have worn my Coyote Ugly shirt."

Kairi laughed and rolled her eyes at me, grinning. "Your brother's a nutcase," she unnecessarily informed me.

"I know," I said, also unnecessarily, because she knew I knew.

"_From this day onnnn, noooow and forrrrEEEEEVERRRR morrrreee…."_

"Jesus."

Roxas dropped everything he'd been holding and stared at his brother, who was still dancing and singing Phil Collins. His mouth—Roxas's, not Sora's—was hanging open. "Jesus," he said again. "Has Sora lost it again?" he asked the general room.

"Yes," Kairi and I said at the same time.

"Oh, okay," Roxas said, picking up the food. "I was just wondering if something out of the ordinary had happened. Never mind me."

Mom walked in with the rest of breakfast. "Hi girls," she said, handing one of the white, smelly (in a good way!) bags to Kairi. "I picked you up some breakfast, Kairi, since I figured you'd be here."

"Thanks Tifa," she said, smiling prettily and reaching in for the McGriddle. She passed the bag over to me. The cute little hash browns littered the bottom, though I was starting to feel too sick to eat.

No one really talked much as they ate. I think Kairi was miserable about saying good-bye to Sora, I was too miserable about saying good-bye to _Kairi,_ and Roxas was pissed off, which pissed Mom off. The only slightly normal one was Sora, and even his natural cheer was diminished today. He was miserable about saying good-bye to Kairi too, though he'd be okay because Sora bounced back like a rubber ball from just about anything.

That left everyone else stewing in their own miserableness, waiting for the terrible, final moment when we'd all have to say good-bye and know we'd never have someone as deeply ingrained in our lives as they were now. It was probably like waiting for a bomb to drop—you knew it was gonna happen, but you didn't know when you duck, so you sat there cringing and twitching.

So by the time Mom rolled up her Breakfast Burrito wrappers and glanced at her cell phone clock, we'd all worked ourselves into big tense knots of…tension, I guess. Then she said, "Alright, everyone say good-bye," and Kairi looked ready to burst into tears. I felt the same way.

She hugged Roxas first, socking him in the shoulder when he stiffened like a board (because he Doesn't Hug) and ruffling his blonde hair, ignoring his squalls of protest. Then she hugged my mom, and the two of them held each other like mother and daughter. Mom got all weepy-faced. I didn't see Kairi's face until she turned to come to me, her eyes all wide and poised to unload the water.

Then I was folded into her arms and tears I hadn't even felt were pouring out of me, big shudders wracking me as I bellowed out sobs. God, I was falling apart. Being held by Kairi was making it even worse, the normal sweetness of the act turned bittersweet because of all the sadness of departure in the air. It was unbearable, this feeling.

Kairi ran a hand through my hair. "Hey, Nami," she said, her special name for me. No one else called me Nami. "Don't go to pieces of me. I'll come visit." But as she said it she was choking up on her own words, and then warm water dripped onto my shoulder and she was quivering under my hands.

"Aw, girls," Sora moaned, and then he was crushing both of us in a bear hug and Kairi's crying was audible. Somehow, she slipped out of my arms and into my big brothers, and then you could see the grief on their faces.

Walking out that door and leaving her behind was the worst thing I'd ever done. It reinforced the belief that leaving behind the one you love the most is the most painful thing in this world, and reminded me of how very tragic everything was becoming.

We had to stop by the side of the road ten minutes away from the house so I could lean out and throw up in the parking lot of a convenience store. Mom fussed while Sora went inside and bough Sprite, ibuprofen, and a Three Musketeers bar for me. Once we were on the road, Sora moved into the middle of the back seat, unbuckled my seatbelt, and put his arm around my shoulders.

"It'll be okay, Nam," he said, rubbing my arm with a smile. "You can still call her, and I'm sure she can come visit."

The feeling of impounding tears I'd been feeling all day suddenly overwhelmed me as the realization that I was actually _moving away _from Kairi hit home. I was not going to see her in the mornings at school, or over when she came to see Sora, or at the Merlin's Tower where she worked as a waitress. Never gonna see her crystal blue eyes, or her bright smile, or hear her laughing at some prank she's pulled on Roxas, or…or…

I started to cry again. My head found its way into Sora's lap as I sobbed, a hole ripping in my heart. I hurt everywhere. My head, my chest…it even hurt to breathe. I didn't _want _to leave her. I didn't _want_ to not see her again. I didn't want to be away from her…

…be any further away than I already was.

Sora stroked my hair, combing through it in a soothing way. When I opened my eyes, Roxas's hand was floating in front of my face. It snapped back into his lap the second he noticed I was watching him, and scowled stonily at the dashboard. I smiled despite, because it was nice of him to try to be kind to me.

Mom spoke. Her voice was small and quiet. "I'm sorry about this, Naminé," she said, looking over her shoulder at me with real sadness in her eyes. "I know Kairi was very special to you. But she _can _visit, honey. I'll make sure she does."

Visiting wouldn't be the same, through. It would hurt more, actually. When we lived next door, it was enough to just _see_ her. It was sort of comforting, like having sips of water when you're dying of thirst. I didn't have sips anymore, and seeing her after _not_ seeing her for so long would make me all the more thirstier.

That thought made me close my eyes and suck in breath so I could erase the suffocation pressing down on my chest.

"Why do we have to leave?" I whispered, more to Mom than to anyone else.

Only Roxas heard me. He turned in his seat to look at me, his eyes strangely full. I could see something besides anger in his expression.

It was gave as he turned to Mom. "How can you stand yourself?" he asked Mom, voice full of malice and eyes full of hate.

"Roxas," Mom said sharply. She wasn't sorry anymore.

"No seriously, Tifa! How cane you do this to her? Nam can't survive without Kairi," Roxas said angrily, his voice rising. I thought I'd seen his hand clench in a fist on his knee.

"Naminé can certainly get on fine without Kairi," Tifa growled. She gripped the wheel tightly, as if it was Roxas' neck. "She's a strong girl, she doesn't need Kai to _live—"_

"But she'll be miserable!" Roxas shouted, twisting a full 90 degrees in his seat to chew Mom out. "You don't even care about Naminé, do you? You don't care about _any _of us, you just wanna leave 'cause _you're fucking selfish—"_

"_Roxas!" _Mom screamed, her eyes going towards him, and with it her hands. "_You're—"_

"Mom!" Sora yelled in a panic. "Watch the road!"

A car horn blared and died, and Mom righted herself in the lane. Sora let out a shaky breath. "You're done," Mom said sharply to my twin. "This subject is closed, or so help me God, I will thrash you."

Roxas snorted and curled up in this seat. I heard him mutter something under his breath, though I couldn't hear him very clearly. Sora's fingers combed through my hair again, lovingly and lulling.

* * *

My eyes, despite my will, drifted to the clock. 9:15. We haven't even driving for an hour and a half yet, but it feels like it's been years. Probably that's because I've been checking the damn thing every two seconds. 

A quick look in the rearview mirror showed that Sora and Naminé were fine, my daughter dozing on her big brother's lap while he played on his PSP. Roxas was sleeping too, the staticky sounds of his punk rock leaking out of his headphones. His head rested against the car window, mouth slightly ajar. Sora had headphones in as well, listening to something on his handheld. Occasionally, a hand would drift down to Naminé hair and stroke it, sift through the blonde hair.

I sighed and set my eyes back on the road, though my mind went back to what Roxas said earlier about being selfish. Secretly, I wonder how right he is. The reason we're leaving Twilight Town is because I don't want to be around Cloud anymore. But when I made the decision, I felt fairly justified. Naminé was depressed at school, Roxas was struggling with his peers and I'd felt sure they wouldn't mind a change—a clean slate: new school, new people, new opportunity. And Sora would be happy wherever he went, even if he did have to leave behind Kairi.

It was that little red-haired girl I wanted to blame for Naminé's depression, even though I knew that wasn't fair. If Naminé didn't have such a huge crush on her, then she would have been overjoyed to leave Twilight Town. Naminé will probably be happier in general without Kairi. She wouldn't have anyone to be hung up on.

I should talk, though. Here I was, packing up my kids away from their dad because I couldn't bear to live in the same town as him anymore. Yeah, I'm not hung up…no way.

I hate seeing Cloud. I hated feeling that sense of panic whenever I saw him, and that guilt that came with the panic. I hated feeling like I'd done something wrong or that I had to prove myself to him. I hated missing him, late at night when my barriers were down and I wasn't Mom anymore, the mother of three teenagers. I was Tifa Lockhart again, head female athlete and the only girl on the kendo team…a 17-year-old with a serious crush on the blonde senior with stunning blue eyes who didn't say much.

Okay, so we were moving because I had baggage. But it was too late now…wasn't it?

* * *

I started getting very pissed with myself when I saw the new house. I wanted to hate it. I did, at first, because the community was so damn weird. Hollow Bastard was a fairly urban area, with bus lines and streets organized by numbers and no grass _any_where except in parks. There were lots of office buildings with at least a dozen stories, a _lot_ of coffee shops, and a _hell _of a lot of places that could be bars or clubs. Basically, it looked okay. I wouldn't mind town so much. 

But the housing bit…boy. Like I said; urban city, so the homes were urban-y too. Back in Twilight Town, you have a house and you had a yard around it. As in, on all four sides of the house. Here, there was no left side and right side, because all the houses were CONNECTED.

Yeah. I know. Freakish. I mean, the houses were literally built right into each other. Instead of several roofs, there was one long one. And the yard? You have a flowerbox, a mail box, and the sidewalk. No grass, no dirt, no plastic flamingoes. Sidewalk.

So the outside _sucked. _I fully expected the inside to be just as bad, if not worse.

Only it wasn't. It was…fine.

For one, the house looked bigger inside than it did out. Pretty big front space that Mom said was our living room. The kitchen was even bigger and had a table in the center of it, like an island. There was an extra room down the hall and one bathroom. Upstairs were four bedrooms, all pretty big, a closet, and another bathroom. This one had a shower. A big shower. A shower independent of the tub, which I had always credited as a fault in our old shower because people like to leave their crap on the side of tubs—sponges, razors, bottles, Sora's rubber ducky. You were always knocking stuff over and stepping on it. I cut my foot open by stepping on Naminé's Venus razor once. Hopefully, the lack of shelf space in the new shower would discourage that sort of thing.

Mom instantly claimed the master bedroom for her own and left the three bedrooms upstairs to be fought over. There really wasn't much to bitch over: door, four walls, window. They were all the same.

I got the one on the far right, if you were standing on the stairs looking at the rooms. Naminé was between me and Sora. It was fine, as far as rooms went. Kind of boxy and white, but I could probably pain it black. If I could get enough paint. That could be a little tricky.

Boxes started coming in. The movers brought them in by the legions. Mostly, the movers left them in the living room because it was too hard to tell where the boxes went. Sora, who had been put in charge of labeling the boxes, had cheerfully taken a Jumbo-size Sharpie and given the boxes names like, "Roxas's Worthless Crap," "Roxas's semi-worthless Crap," and "Sora's Treasures." Those were easy to place, but then some were called "Breakable" and had towels in them. For another he'd written "Belongs to one of the twins," which said nothing. Then for same reason, he'd put all our clothes in three boxes, all mixed up.

Which meant it was the task of Naminé and I to open every box with the pair of scissors we'd rescue from the "Never never never NEVER lose!!!!" box and then re-label it according to which room it was supposed to go in.

Every. Single. Box.

Plus, why was it _Naminé _that I'd been assigned with? She looked totally miserable kneeling there on the floor, labeling with this sad look on her face. Being around mopey people always annoyed the hell out of me—I mean, suck it _up _already—but since this was Naminé, my twin and therefore my flesh-and-blood, I felt extremely uncomfortable because I couldn't take my annoyance out on her like I would on anyone else. I felt like—argh, shouldn't I be comforting her? Trying to make her feel better, or—or something?

"Um, Nam?"

She looked up at me with those blue eyes, and my brotherly resolve wavered. I am _so _bad at this.

"Yeah?"

I swallowed. "Um. Don't—don't worry about Kairi. You'll get—uh, over it. Her. I mean, there're tons of girls here. You have to like one of them." That sounded bad. "I mean, maybe—"

"Roxas."

I stopped. "What?"

"Just quit while I'm not violent, 'kay?"

"Okay."

She smiled at me, though, so I knew it was okay. I could help but be embarrassed, though. I must've sounded like a retard.

"You'll probably meet a nice boy here too," she said kindly.

I grunted. Whatever.

* * *

Roxas claimed that what went down next was all my fault. I don't even see how that could be in anyway possible. It is so not my fault HE left the back door open. In fact, it was probably more his fault for being such a snarky ass. 

What happened was that, after growing bored with re-labeling the boxes (even though they were perfectly fine in the first place), Roxas wandered into the kitchen, where Mom and I were trying to figure out where all the kitchen appliances would fit on the counters based on cord length. We had them all lined up on the table: the microwave, the coffee-maker, the espresso-maker (which makes great latte's and shit black coffee), the toaster, the blender and the popcorn maker. Roxas wandered in, gave me and Mom an apathetic look, and sauntered over to the sliding glass back door. He opened it, stuck his head out, and sneered. "_That's _our backyard?"

Okay, so our backyard wasn't all that impressive. It was a small brick courtyard, divided from our neighbors yard by a wire fence.

"What's wrong with it?" Mom asked in surprise. "It's nice."

She hated it too, then. Anything _nice _is evil to Tifa.

"It's a _lot,_" Roxas snapped, putting one foot outside. "And it's tiny."

He stepped all the way outside.

"And ugly," he added after a moment.

Mom muttered something under her breath. I don't know what she said but it sounded potentially painful. I edged away.

Roxas came back inside, leaning against the open door as he sighed and moaned dramatically. "It sucks here," he said in a pained voice. "I hate it."

Mom ignored him but muttered with more fervor. I moved even further away, but luckily she threw down the pen she'd been holding and left, calling, "Naminé, where's the calculator?!"

"We don't even have a real yard," he continued to whine, even though he knew I didn't give a damn about what he had to say. "And it's all made of—EEEEEYYYYYYY AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

My brother let out a girly scream as something small, fluffy, and yellow attached itself to his leg. It mad loud squawking sounds that formed a cacophony of noise when mixed with Roxas' frenzied screams.

"GET OFF ME YOU FLUFFY CHICKEN NUGGET OF DEATH!" he howled. He kicked his leg furiously trying to get the yellow thing off him. I wasn't sure what to do: go dutifully save the little brother, or run for the camcorder and make a fortune on Atlantica's Funniest Home Videos.

"SORA! GET OVER HERE AND—!!!" he commanded, but then sent the yellow thing flying…

..right into the appliances.

If I hadn't spent twenty minutes carefully organizing the devices and then neatly wrapping the cords into tidy loops, I'd've thought that the sight of the fat little chocobo chick sailing through the kitchen into the blender was the funniest thing in the world. Just the chocobo's expression alone was hilarious. But that paired with the fat little yellow ball landing right in the blender was perfect.

Then again, there was the fact that I'd spent twenty minutes carefully organizing the devices and then neatly wrapping the cords into tidy loops, and now the crazy little bird-critter was running around the table crazily and knocking everything over onto the floor.

Everything.

Including my espresso machine.

God save the worthless soul that dares to harm my espresso machine. I need my lattes.

"YOU DAMN BIRD!" Roxas screamed, lunging for the chocobo that was still running in circles on the table and knocking down out microwave. He missed and hit the table edge with his chest just as the chocobo hopped over to peck on his head.

"SORA!" he screamed, falling over and battling at the chocobo with flapping hands. "DO SOMETHING!"

Hmm. What on Earth could I do. I had a pen and a piece of scratch paper with the scribbles of Tifa and mine, and a ruler. I grabbed the ruler. The shiny side could serve as a potential weapon.

The chocobo stopped running in circles long enough to glare at me, squawk, then turn and fart at Roxas.

"That's IT!" Roxas screamed. He jumped to his feet and seized the chocobo, one hand around its neck and the other around a leg. The bird flapped and squirmed and made noises, but my brother held it firmly and with a murderous look in his eye.

Hmm. This could get ugly.

"Roxas," I said slowly, "put down the chicken and—"

"DONALD?!"

Something equally as small and yellow and flew into our kitchen and tackled Roxas, causing him to topple over and (banging his chin on the table edge in the process) hit the floor again with the chocobo underneath him. The second yellow thing, which turned out to be a girl of about twelve, started pounding on Roxas' back and added her screams to the chocobo's incessant squalling.

"SORA!" Roxas howled over the din. "DO SOMETHING, YOU FUCK!"

Hmm.

I took a look at the ruler in my hand and chucked it into the sink. Then I sucked air into my lungs, halted for a dramatic effect, and then screamed. Ear piercing sound rang through the kitchen on what I was sure was a supersonic level, covering up the other noise and leaving Roxas, the girl, and the chocobo staring at me.

Naminé wandered in as I was finishing the scream. I opened my eyes (because I always close my eyes when I scream) and saw her blinking at me. I shut my mouth and smiled. She blinked again, then dropped the box she'd bee holding and shuffled out.

The girl blinked at me. "Wow," she said admiringly. "I didn't even know the human body could make a sound like that."

"No, it's just Sora," Naminé called as she walked past the kitchen. Totally ignoring the fact we had a complete stranger sprawled out over Roxas.

"Ooh," the girl said, bouncing to her feet. Then she kicked Roxas in the head with a flip-flopped foot.

"Hey!" he yelped, rubbing his head. "What the hell's your problem?"

"You are!" the girl screeched. She was short, blonde (her hair was braided into a zillion braids) and wore yellow from head to toe. "You _attacked _Donald!"

"Who?" Roxas snarled.

"My _chocobo!" _she screamed, scooping the bird up into her arms. "You tried to kill him!"

"_He _tried to kill _me!" _Roxas roared, standing up and towering over the little yellow girl. "He just bit my leg and—and—what the hell is it doing off a leash anyways?"

"Donald doesn't need a leash!" she yelled, stamping one foot. "He needs to be kept away from you, you chocobo killer!"

I felt that I needed to intervene in order to save my brother's sanity, before he lost what little he still had left. "Um, who are you?" I said to the yellow girl.

She grinned at me cheekily. "I'm Rikku Sasaki. I live next door. My chocobo's name is Donald. Who're you?"

"Sora," I replied, eying her. "And that's my brother Roxas."

Rikku beamed at me and sent a Glare of Death. "Look," she said to him. "Stay away from my chocobo. If anything happens to him, I'll personally kick your ass."

She turned on her heel and marched out, Donald the Chocobo giving us one last defiant squawk. Roxas yelled after her, "Just keep him in your own fucking lot!" and then turned around…

…only to turn bone white because Tifa was giving him _her _Glare of Death, which was more terrifying than any other Glare of Death in the universe.

"Did I just hear you cursing at the _entire neighborhood?"_ Mom wanted to know.

Roxas swallowed ominously.

It turned out that his only punishment for dropping the F-bomb at the top of his lungs was to unpack all the boxes and sort the stuff inside all by himself-nothing terrible. He was finally finished at ten that night, which was when I heard him stagger down the hall into the bathroom. Minutes later he staggered into his bedroom. The mattress squeaked—he didn't have a bed frame upstairs yet—and he groaned miserably.

The next two days dragged on. We moved furniture, unpacked boxes, moved the furniture again, put stuff up, away or in the trash. Mom and I spent two hours trying to the way to the grocery store and back, which was silly in retrospect because the damn thing was only 15 blocks away. We came home to find Roxas blasting Taking Back Sunday from his room (which he spent most of Sunday painting white and black—Mom would only agree to black paint if he had some white too) and Naminé painting a mural on _her _walls, though she refused to say what exactly the colorful blobs on the walls were.

Sunday night, I called my dad. He listened patiently as I told him all about the last three days and summed up thirty minutes of my chattering into two words:

"Sounds rough."

"It is," I agreed, ignoring Tifa's screams for me to get off the phone NOW and go to bed. "Everyone's going crazy."

"How's Roxas doin'?" he asked.

"Fine. He's whining about everything and won't leave his room, so we know he's okay."

"Good." He paused. "What about Nam? Still holding in?"

"Um." Well, that was harder. She _acted _okay, but she spent too much time in her room with the door closed. "Well. Um. I _think _she's alright…"

"You don't know."

"Not a clue."

I could imagine Cloud blinking and sighing all the way in Twilight Town. "Well, that's not surprising. She's had her heart broken."

I agreed and then had to say good-bye, because my mom was beating me with a tube of toothpaste and ranting on about getting my ass in bed.

School was starting tomorrow.

* * *

Aaaaaand that's the end...I've already started chapter four, only now I'm gonna have to redo it because I wrote in in first person, and now I'm all ix-nay on the irst person-fay, so...yeah...I won't give you an idea of how long it will take because I know I won't live up to it. I have Complications with deadlines. 

Thanks for reading!


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